The material is pretty much from the first album except it sounds and is played like the band had rehearsed the songs. In all fairness, Alice himself said the first album was pretty much rehearsal takes of the songs. He knew they has mistakes, but the band were not able to re-record any of the tracks.

Overall, the band was trying to sound psychedelic, but they seemed at this point in there careers to have no sense of hooks and riffs. The arrangements are all over the place. Bob Ezrin worked with the band quite a bit to get the sound everyone is so familiar with on "Love it to Death". Glen Buxton's solos are original but a bit unfocused. He has kind of a jazzy-rock feel to his playing which did'nt resurface until "Blue Turk" on the "School's Out" album in 1972. Ironically, it was Buxton who seemed to have the most trouble going form his loose-styled psycheldelic lead playing to the more tight and commercial sound Bob Ezrin needed on later albums.

In closing, "Live..." is basically a completists album. It is interesting in it's own right to hear the group in this form but the performances and material, with a few exceptions, can't hold a candle to the Ezrin-produced albums which came later.


Early Alice!!!!   September 25, 1999
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

This contains early Alice Cooper tracks and frankly it isn't great but it is worth having not for any songs particularily but it is the beginning of an American institution Alice Cooper, plus trust me Alice goes on to bigger and better things. This is one only for the diehards so if you are new to Alice buy something else.